Blog Archive

Posts for January, 2012

The Guinness World Records 2012 Gamer's Edition is now available for your perusing pleasure, promising the most comprehensive collection of video game-related records available for $14.99.

The tome of epic gaming antics ranges from the Pokémon playing Arnold family of Frankfort, Ill., who hold the title of "Largest Competitive Pokémon Videogame Family," to Hank Chien of New York City, who holds the title of "Highest Score on Donkey Kong" with 1,090,000 points.

Elizabeth Bolinger of Iowa was crowned "Most Prolific Dancing Game High Scorer" with top scores in 85 songs across "Dance Central," "Just Dance" and "Just Dance 2." And actress Jennifer Hale holds the Guinness title for "Most Prolific Voice Actor" for performing in 129 video games over almost two decades.

Any "Angry Birds" fans out there? The popular mobile game currently rules as both the "Best-Selling Mobile Series" with more than 250 million downloads and the app with the "Most Days Spent as the Best-Selling App in iTunes Store," with 275 consecutive days.

And the "Most Valuable Kinect Sensor," according to Guinness, is a blinged out model with 6,000 Swarovski crystals that costs $1,242.

Guinness says its latest gamers edition also incldues lists and quizzes with trivia like the "Top 50 Video Game Endings" of all time as voted by more than 13,000 Guinness World Records readers. There are also features on professional video game players, a compilation of the biggest "Gaming Fails" and a PS3 vs. XBOX 360 comparison.

"Star Wars: The Old Republic," a big-budget, massively multiplayer online computer game that went on sale last month, is now fully operational and boasting some impressive early statistics, including more than 1 million gamers racking up more than 60 million hours inside the digital universe.

Those online gamers have built more than 810,000 Jedi knight characters; completed more than 260 million quests; engaged in more than 44 million player-vs-player battles; and slaughtered more than 3 billion non-player characters.

Vendetta Online, an online computer game from Milwaukee's Guild Software, dropped a lot of jaws when it starred last year in a national advertising blitz for Motorola's Xoom tablet.

The sci-fi spaceflight game was a fashionable fit for the Android-powered touch tablet, and now it is officially available for phones, too, on the Android Market.

Shrinking a massively multiplayer online computer game so it runs smoothly and plays well on a smartphone is no small feat -- pardon the pun -- but Guild Software's new "condensed" interface provides easy navigation.

Moving through menus is intuitive, and the mobile game offers support for joysticks and built-in voice chat for players to coordinate with others online. The game runs over 3G and Wi-Fi connections, according to Guild's website, and requires Android version 2.2, also known as Froyo. | Jan. 5, 2012»Read Full Blog Post

Nielsen released a report today on how people devour their entertainment across television, online, mobile and social conduits. Among the figures from Nielsen's U.S. "media universe": Nearly one in three TV households – 35.9 million – owns four or more televisions, and TV still rules as the most popular entertainment device, with 290 million Americans and 114.7 households owning at least one.

The second most popular media devices ar the DVD players with 253 million owners, followed by video game consoles (162 million); digital cable (145 million); DVR (129 million) and satellite access, with 95 million. Traditional TV is also still the most popular way Americans watch video, with 288 million viewers compared with 143 million Internet viewers, 111 million "time-shifted" TV viewers (up 11% since the second quarter of 2010), and 30 million watching TV and video via mobile phones.

The top five mobile video channels are YouTube, Fox, ABC, Comedy Central and CBS, Nielsen says.

The summary also offers some metrics on how people view their streaming Netflix and Hulu: 89% of Hulu customers watched video directly from their computers, 20% watched via a computer linked to a TV, 8% watched using a game console, and 2% viewed Hulu through an Internet-connected TV.

Streaming Netflix was more popular on game systems with 50% watching, while 42% streamed directly on a computer, 14% on a computer connected to a TV and 6% on a Internet-connected TV.

Nielsen's researchers also found 211 million Americans are online; 85.9 million households have broadband; and 116 million users ages 13 and older access the Web through mobile devices. And in the realm of social media consumption, 97% tapped into networks using a computer; 37% via mobile phone, and gaming consoles and iPads each checked in at 3% each. | Jan. 6, 2012

Whether you played "Space Invaders" for hours on the Atari 2600 or sank endless quarters playing "Gauntlet" in an arcade, Atari enjoys a special spot in the heart and history of gaming.

Atari shaped the foundation of today's video game industry and culture, and an upcoming book, co-authored by local writer and game historian Marty Goldberg, tells the stories of the people who built the company into an icon.

"With this book, we really wanted to make it more about the stories and people that worked there," said Goldberg, former director of IGN/Gamespy's ClassicGaming.com and currently a freelancer for Retro Gamer magazine. | Jan. 7, 2012»Read Full Blog Post(2)

Admittedly, I miss going to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The sprawling exhibit hall. Racing from meeting to meeting. Covering the keynotes and then racing to get something online and in print as quickly as possible. And the then partying afterward...

Well, the CES kicks off this week, and Microsoft, beloved for outstanding consumer electronics like its Zune player, tablet PCs and -- oh wait. Scratch those. Well, there is always the Xbox, and its Windows phones, and those were a couple of its core talking points during its keynote address Monday night.

No, I wasn't there, but through the power of the Internet, I could stream the dog and pony show online, and that's exactly what I did. And although it's nothing like the spectacle of being there, I didn't have to stand in a miles-long line snaking through a smoky casino or play whose the bigger geek with the tech writers sitting on either side of me. | Jan. 10, 2012»Read Full Blog Post

New downloadable add-ons for "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" were revealed today, and Raven Software in Madison is one of the studios recruited to help build out one of the most popular games released last year.

It not clear exactly what Raven will be designing to expand "MW3," but the company, well known for its work on first-person shooters, is on the roster of studios designing the "Modern Warfare 3 Content Season," along with lead studio Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games.

The first wave of "Modern Warfare 3" downloads are new multiplayer maps for online competitions. The fresh settings are titled "Liberation" and "Piazza"; one is war-ravaged version of Central Park, the other is an Italian village by the sea.

Activision, which publishes "MW3," announced that its blitzkrieg of upcoming downloads will run over nine months starting Jan. 24, with "Call of Duty Elite" premium members on Xbox Live getting access first, followed by other platforms "at a later time." Premium elite memberships cost $50 and include all of the downloadable content for the game, as well as access to specific competitions and "many more revolutionary" features...

Those who aren't paying subscribers will be able to buy the downloads a la carte, but prices were not announced. These content "drops," as Activision likes to call them, will total 20 in all and allegedly go beyond just multiplayer maps and will include "Special Ops" missions and new game modes. | Jan. 10, 2012

The studio making the next "Tomb Raider" video game announced today it's working with Geocaching.com to create a collection of real-life treasure-hunting adventures to promote Lara Croft's latest saga.

Crystal Dynamics and Geocaching.com will design a series of location-based challenges this year that represent the spirit of "Tomb Raider" and heroine Croft's evolution into explorer. "Tomb Raider," which is tentatively due next year according to retailer release sheets, is an origin-story-themed adventure chronicling how Croft grew into an action hero.

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure-hunting hobby in which players research the caches hidden by others, get a general idea of where they might be and then use the GPS coordinates posted online to guide them to their destination.

The goal is to find the cache, sign the log book and take a trinket-type prize if there are any. And geocaching is quite popular, with more than 5 million players hunting down more 1.6 million geocaches stashed worldwide.

There are currently few on details on these "Tomb Raider" geocaching challenges -- I have a call in to publisher Square-Enix for more details. But Crystal Dynamics says in a statement that it will use Geocaching.com's popular treasure hunting site as well as a newer photo-powered adventure system called Geocaching Challenges for the project. | Jan. 11, 2012»Read Full Blog Post

The numbers are in for video games sales last month, and they aren't great: sales of hardware, software and accessories fell 21% in December from a year ago.

Analysts at the NPD group blamed the bad news at least partially on the aging generation of the current game systems. The Xbox 360 turns 7 years old this November and both the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii turn 6.

Still, NPD told the AP that the disappointing results were unexpected considering the quality of new games released this fall for the holiday shopping season, including "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3," which was the top-selling title, and "Just Dance 3," which was second. December games sales dropped 14% from a year ago to $2.04 billion, and for the year, fell 6% to $8.83 billion.

When Nintendo revealed its next-gen Wii U console in June, company pitch men said the system will go on sale sometime in 2012. Sony and Microsoft have not yet announced plans for their next-generation systems, and a high-level Sony executive said at the Consumer Electronics Show this week that the company will not reveal a new PlayStation at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo in June. | Jan. 13, 2012»Read Full Blog Post

Green Bay Packers fans show their love for the team in so many ways, whether it's wearing a cheese wedge hat or crafting a man cave to epic Packer proportions.

Now you can toast future Green Bay victories with sandwiches or waffles with the Pangea Brands NFL Logo Sandwich and Waffle Grill, which emblazons the NFL logo of your choice onto your bread.

The clam shell press has a lock down lid for even cooking, and its non-stick plates can be removed -- not that any Packer fan willing to pay $49.99 for one of these would ever consider swapping in some other team... | Jan. 13, 2012»Read Full Blog Post

Another International Consumer Electronics Show has come and gone, and although there was no earth-shattering news, there were some fun and interesting developments among the deluge of new mobile phones, laptops, tablets, TVs and other gadgets on display.

The annual trade show in Las Vegas, the largest of its kind in North America, enticed tech heads with concepts like "smart" TVs, new mobile devices using 4G networks and super OLED televisions, which offer brilliant color and are remarkably thin.

EA, maker of games like "Madden NFL" and "Tiger Woods PGA Tour," announced today it's signed on Katy Perry for an "extensive and exclusive creative collaboration" that will infuse the pop star into the "Sims" computer games.

The deal includes creating Perry-themed in-game items and virtual goods and begins with a Perry-themed collector’s edition of "The Sims 3 Showtime," which will go on sale in March.

"I love how you're able to play out different stories through your Sims characters - giving them different careers and watching them succeed,” Perry says in a statement announcing the news. “It’s cool to see the Sims’ stage performances in The Sims 3 Showtime decked out just like my California Dreams Tour – even my cotton candy video screens are in there! I always like to think of myself as a cartoon, and now I’m a Sim!” | Jan. 17, 2012»Read Full Blog Post

The Classic, which will be March 24 and 25 at the Brookfield Sheraton, is a grassroots, homegrown event built by the tireless efforts of its organizers, but ultimately successful thanks to a legion of volunteers who help with everything from setting up to offering up their vintage machines for the public to play. It's the largest event of its kind in the Midwest, with gaming activities, products, tournaments and industry workshops ranging from old-school pinball to modern day systems.

So to supply supporters with tools to help spread the word, the Classic has a fresh promotion page with downloadable fliers, embeddable banners and its social media links. There is also a new "how to help" page with details on how to volunteer, as well as the benefits of pre-ordering tickets ahead of time, which include a discount and the fact funds from advance tickets sales are immediately invested back into the current show. | Jan. 19, 2012»Read Full Blog Post

"Resident Evil" is a successful video game series that has also done well on the silver screen.

So action-horror-movie fans as well as gamers should get excited: "Resident Evil 6" is on the horizon, officially due for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PCs stores Nov. 20.

Capcom, which is publishing the game, says in a statement that "Resident Evil 6" will be "the most ambitious, immersive and feature rich title of the series to date," but fails to share many details beyond a very general introduction to the plot, which revolves around a bioterrorist attack. | Jan. 20, 2012»Read Full Blog Post

Wikipedia withheld its services for a day. Google slapped up a protest logo. And millions of online citizens raged over legislation that would advance efforts to fight online piracy at the risk of Internet liberties.

Wednesday's protests against the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act galvanized opposition to the anti-piracy measures, which critics argue could be used to censor legitimate sites where people share content.

The House and Senate bills, which are supported by the music and movie industries, attempt to stop overseas websites from pirating protected content. The legislation was opposed by online companies including Facebook and Craigslist, which say the onerous rules would hamstring Web companies with new liabilities. | Jan. 21, 2012»Read Full Blog Post(3)

It's that slowish time in the video game release season -- after the holidays but before the push in March -- and that means it's time for game blogs to run rampant with rumors, hysterics and heavy breathing, citing anonymous sources claiming the inside scoop. The next Xbox was the subject of wide-scale speculation recently.

Sure, why not, let's bite:

First up: Microsoft's successor to the Xbox 360 will use a Radeon 6000 series GPU, offering features like multidisplay output, 3D and 1080p HD output, according to the site IGN. This processor will provide six times the processing power of the Xbox 360 and arrive in stores in late October or early November 2013. | Jan. 25, 2012»Read Full Blog Post(3)

Modern fan films are special children of the Internet, powered by thousands of people creatively collaborating and sharing because of their love of a special subject. Like "Star Wars."

And the recently released "Star Wars: Uncut" project, which is the fruit of more than two years worth of work, is available for your viewing pleasure.

"Star Wars: Uncut" is crowd-sourced fan film transforming "Star Wars: A New Hope." By splicing together selected 15-second clips filmed by fans worldwide, the Uncut organizers have created something wildly unique yet familiar at the same time. The feature-length film, available on YouTube, runs more than two hours long and includes scenes crafted from techniques including stop-motion animation with action figures, computer-generated images and costumed live-action antics. | Jan. 25, 2012»Read Full Blog Post

More than 164 million Americans streamed more than 22 billion videos and spent more than five hours on average watching online video in December, according to Nielsen.

The top online destinations for video based on unique viewers were: YouTube with more than 131 million; Vevo with more than 39 million; Yahoo with more than 36 million; Facebook with more than 23 million and MSN with almost 23 million.

Based on total video streams served up, the top online sources were YouTube, Hulu, Vevo, AOL MediaNetwork and Yahoo. And the top five online video destinations based on time per viewer were Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Justin.tv and Megavideo.

Netflix, which reported better than expected earnings today, was the sixth-most popular online video destination in December based on total streams with 251,792,000. It's time per view of more than 10 hours each was more than double that of Hulu, its nearest competitor, which had an average per-viewer time of just over three hours. Netflix added 600,000 customers in the United States in the fourth quarter, the AP says, ending December with 24.4 million subscribers. | Jan. 25, 2012(2)

The iPad is quickly becoming a popular companion to television, and Fanhattan and Viggle, a couple of pretty interesting apps, recently added some new features making watching TV and movies more enjoyable.

Fanhattan, an app for iPhones and iPads that helps TV fans browse through the massive collections of on-demand video online, today announced it's adding content from more than 60 entertainment publications, including Billboard, E!, Entertainment Weekly, Hollywood Reporter, People and Rolling Stone.

The app already let users research and stream free and paid TV shows and movies from sources like iTunes, Vudu, Netflix, Hulu. The new deal adds news, features, reviews and other content through the app's "fan feed," which lets you scroll through stories, share those articles over social media and instantly bring up bios of the actors and other celebrities mentioned in each piece.

The news in that fan feed isn't the freshest -- it all seems about 24 hours old -- but the integration with all of the related media is pretty tight and intelligent. | Jan. 26, 2012»Read Full Blog Post

Netflix gets plenty of grief for the quality of its streaming catalog.

Personally, I think the criticism is fair -- I can't count how many cold winter nights I've sifted through wave after wave of viewing suggestions desperately searching for something. Complex.com has undertaken the arduous task of compiling what it believes to be the 100 best movies streaming on Netflix right now. That "right now" part is important, because options can vary as Netflix's distribution deals change, for better or for worse.

The selection is worth quickly clicking through, although I didn't see any shocking revelations. It includes action films like "Die Hard," "The Terminator" and "Dirty Harry"; family-friendly features like "Toy Story 3" and "The Iron Giant"; and comedies like "Robin Hood: Men In Tights" and "Stripes."

The roster isn't the youngest lineup of entertainment out there, but hey, freshness is compromised for quantity on this buffet. Some movies that had arrived on streaming that were under my radar include "Shutter Island," "Carlito's Way," "Blade Runner," "Kick Ass" and "The Big Lebowski." They also mention "Black Death," starring Sean Bean and Eddie Redmayne, that I stumbled across a few weekends ago. Slow at times, I thought that, overall, it was worth watching. Visit the list and share what you think Complex missed! | Jan. 27, 2012(5)

Time Warner Cable has extended its membership in the "there's an app for that" club, announcing today its new TWC TV app for iPhone is now available on iTunes. The app lets subscribers watch live TV -- from within their homes -- change channels on their set-top box and manage recordings on their DVRs.

The TWC TV apps shows a seven-day interactive program guide with listings that includes descriptions of programs, box art and the option to display “HD only” or “favorites only” by building a favorite channel list. Users can search for shows by title and filter those results by genre. The Time Warner iPhone app mimics the features of the company's apps for iPad and Android devices, and it's quite similar an app available for AT&T Uverse subscribers. | Jan. 27, 2012

A lot can be done in just 48 hours, including building a smart, fun computer game.

So is the challenge at Milwaukee Area Technical College, where dozens of growing game designers are scrambling to finish their projects today, part of a worldwide event called the Global Game Jam that started Friday.

The school is one of more than 240 venues in 46 countries running the software sprint, which tasks teams - made up of novices and professionals - with building games based on a theme, scoring the work and sharing it online. | Jan. 28, 2012»Read Full Blog Post

LEGO lovers, this is your dream job: LEGOLAND Discovery Center Chicago is looking to hire a master model builder to create new exhibits and models. And it's holding a contest to find that special someone with skills, creativity and love of LEGO for the job.

Candidates, who must be 18 or older to apply, should log on to the center's website by Feb. 17 and upload a resume and a one-minute YouTube video showing why they should the next Master Model Builder. The Lords of LEGO will select 10 finalists, who will be invited to a public "build-off" on March 4.

Those 10 builders will be buried in "mountains" of pre-selected LEGO bricks and must build complex models using only the bricks provided. A judging panel made up of adults and children will rate each builder's creations and crown a winner.

There is no salary range mentioned in the job posting, which is officially listed in Schaumburg. The requirements and qualifications include in depth knowledge of the construction trades; strong artistic vision and design skills; excellent computer skills, and strong communication skills, among other virtues. | Jan. 31, 2012